We've heard Radnaal say she was ambitious, and she's got the support of the Olthoi, my guess is that she attacked Janwall because she needs a port town, she needs ships. When it's all said and done, we can offer the use of Holtburg's docks to get her lumber out on ships and to more clients/partners.

What I remember from last time was "we have the Olthoi. What does the Exchange have?" That conversation quickly turned around from what the two blocs can do together to "what can the Exchange do for the Slates". She sees us as an extension of her influence, and we, the forefront of the planning and action of the Exchange, have been gone for almost a week. This doesn't send a good message. In that regard to all that, whatever it was that Gretta rethought was only for making nice to a lesser bloc in control of a city they didn't deserve, considered that much more because we gave her more than enough time to send a response to us. She could have been spinning around in her armchair for who-knows-how-long before deciding to write that letter.

We just helped them take Janwall in pieces(actually I don't think anybody can have Janwall now), but to me it seems like they could have handled it well themselves. Without our intervention, the Slates would have driven the Runners out of Janwall and onto their ships(they were headed north to the port), sailing to another port town belonging to them, or a soon-to-be-ousted rival.

It's time to show Gretta we have the power to take what's hers the hard way. And Rory wouldn't mind bulldozing a wall again.

Okie dokie, Spock. I think using fire is out of the question(I know, I did suggest it first), we don't want to burn their lumber. Might be shipments inside, and we'd risk it spreading into the area around the town. Which might have trees in it. Don't quote me on that. The gunpowder, however, could prove useful, depending on how much Zeiss has. I have some alcohol, but I'm not sure what we could do with that, aside from set things on fire, which I want to reiterate is an unsavory idea.

As an aside, did we lose that Mirror Key when the people aboard the ship attacking Janwall were wished to the cornfield, or did that stay behind? And who has it?

Also, where are we exactly? I know Fierneceal, Snarg and Zeiss came to meet the people left behind in Janwall when they touched down in the corvette, then we talked to Radnaal, then Snarg ran off to scout, I'm probably on my way to get Kolson in Holtburg right now, maybe, but I don't think the group actually went anywhere, and I don't think Radnaal left, yet.

This hand of mine is burning red. Its loud roar tells me to grasp victory.

Anyway, let's really not split up unless we really scope out the place and know exactly where we're going and have specific targets. Splitting up is a good way to get ganked when you're outnumbered. That's what we want to do to them, not us. I don't think trying to use deception or clever tactics is really needed here from what I've seen during scouting. We lose advantage the longer we wait because we lose more surprise and they get more prepared.

Also: the dwarves as pretty well-equipped with steel weapons and granite armor (any spoils from the battle left in Janwell?)

Since we're gonna have to attack without splitting up, we still have to wait for Rory to get back from Holtburg with Kolson and Rekarg, so it wouldn't really hurt our chances to pick through the spoils of Janwall to see what we can use. I vote no against deceit, but we could definitely use a distraction and prepare a second while I'm away.

Let's change the question then. Forget about the last vote I asked for. We're speeding this up a little and it's good. As of now, we are going to attack using distractions without splitting up the group. From what I saw in the earlier posts, the majority of people are okay with this option. So now...

What distractions are we going to use without splitting up the group or using deceit?

Anyone has a good idea? We don't want to fight all of their forces at the same time.

I was gonna post my whole idea with my vote, but I decided to wait for a good opening.

Snarg could definitely set off that fire wand thing in a direction we aren't attacking from, and depending on what we get from Janwall, if anything at all, we could have a second distraction prepared to set off maybe two minutes after the fire wand goes off, using the wand's distraction as the countdown signal.

First Snarg would set off the wand on one side, then hurry back. Two minutes later, the second distraction is set off on another side, and the group setting that off can hurry back right after, same thing. Whoever's setting off the distractions need to be fast or roll high on athletics to run fast, and be good at stealth maybe.

I would prefer not for anyone to use the wand for anything. We don't really know what it does. As far as we know, it instantly kills the user upon activation. I'm sure we can use more mundane means for a distraction if you really want one. However, I don't believe a distraction is really what we want in this situation. The idea is to catch them off-guard immediately, not alert all of them something is happening several minutes before we actually attack. I understand the idea is to draw people away from the area we're actually going into, but I think it would be more beneficial to just not put the town on alert beforehand with the amount of people we have. Shock tactics essentially.

Note this isn't apparently to scale, that is to say each one of those buildings is not the size of a building, but rather the size of a city block, and the only streets shown are the major ones. I thought about making my own map but decided to just modify a random one to work instead, looks nicer.

From what you know from Radnaal the two red shaped buildings are likely where they're housing military headquarters, as the further north one was where he himself was making his barracks and the southern one is a converted street block turned into barracks. The circular topped building icons represent where the towers are roughly located, and the circular granite icon represents where the major warehousing area is.

Well it seems to me like the path of least resistance and detection would be from the north. We could rush south, take a right, take the second left, then left again and find ourselves at the front door to the barracks further north. From there, we could split a stealthy group off to round the two buildings on the west side and take them by surprise, while the group on the north side will charge in as soon as they hear the commotion.

We could then deal with troops on our way to the remaining barracks and use the same tactics there. Then we could cross the north bridge, avoiding the towers, and work on the warehouse district and deal with the towers afterward.

While we're attempting this, we should take the time to question a couple people to figure out where the main bulk of their forces are. Once we know for sure were most of them are, we should be able to use urban ambush tactics.

I have no comment one way or the other on the plan. I have had zero dealings with any of the other parties and I wasn't here for the last session.

That said, I'm up for anything that will increase the Exchange's power and remove one of our rivals from play. Just wish we had more intel on where the enemy leader will be so we can take her out.

Edit: Also, don't be too quick to abandon the distraction plan. Just change the timing of it. We are going to need to cause some chaos during the mission to keep the superior forces off balance so they don't surround us and kill us.